CRWS (Desktop 23), and Enigma 2.5

I know it's unusual for me to post two shots in such a short span of time, but I was really pleased with how this little late-night experiment came out. This setup owes a lot to this one by nh0j, whose taste I really admire, and of course teknoftw's now-famous Wheat. As before, I use the Toggle button in the bottom-left to hide the bulk of the HUD, so what I'm usually looking at when I'm working is this.

 

Also, for those who were interested before, this is the full-size shot of my current Firefox setup. As said, I've dumped Fast Dial (it was a bad breakup) and replaced its function with a deliberately-simple HTML file on my hard drive. I've also begun using autoHideStatusbar to emulate Chrome's handy feature of showing the bar when I'm hovering on a link. Best of both worlds.

 

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Enigma 2.5

 

is coming this week. Excluding the inevitable bug fixes, this will be the final incarnation of Enigma as purely a Rainmeter skin. After this, work will commence on the Litestep project.

 

This update won't be adding as many new features and functions as 2.0. This is about tying loose ends: Enigma is a product, and I want to refine it as much as possible before it enters its next phase of evolution. That said, there are still some new treats that I'm a bit excited about:

 

- New and improved installer now works perfectly with Windows Vista, 7 and 64-bit. (You will have to update to the newest version of Rainmeter to take advantage of this; see below.)

- Finally, an iTunes plugin! You will no longer need to run CD Art Display alongside Rainmeter.

- RSS 1.0 and Atom feeds are now supported.

- Weather and Location problems will be fixed by switching to a new data source.

- A laundry list of minor tweaks and improvements, as usual.

 

I'll make the official announcement on LCD when it's available, so stay tuned.

 

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Have I forgotten something?

 

As before, I'm going to wait a few days before releasing it in case you folks have any last-minute requests. Large or small, feel free to post them.

 

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Rainmeter

 

This is a great time to start getting into Rainmeter. For those who haven't heard, this is a very unusual success story: a year ago today, Rainmeter was a piece of primitive abandonware full of untapped potential but showing no signs of life. A few months ago, however, several members of the community lobbied Rainy, the creator of Rainmeter (and its big brother, Rainlendar), and got permission to resurrect it as an open-source project. They now have an active forum for you to get help, post screenshots, test your skins, suggest features, and keep up with Rainmeter's ongoing progress. :)

 

More importantly, though:

 

The latest version has made a major change in Rainmeter's file system: it now stores your skins in My Documents, and your settings in Application Data, like a proper Windows app. This is going to change the way some skins, including Enigma, are built. Although it's still a beta, I encourage you to download the newest version and update. To apply the new file system, you must delete or rename C:\Program Files\Rainmeter\Rainmeter.ini. If you don't, the setup will consider it a "portable" installation and keep the current organization, which could cause problems down the road. You can read more about this change here.

 

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Desktop

 

Theme:

- NOOTO VS. Requires patched uxtheme.dll - patcher here.

- Wallpaper: Cropped from CRWS by Marius Bauer and Brian Slagenweit.

 

Startups:

- Autohotkey.

- Launchy.

 

Programs running:

- Rainmeter. Skin: Enigma 2.5, customized with Amana Icons.

- Yod'm 3D 1.4.

Done